But according to Jeff Linton, who is with the Alberta Bottle Depot Association, gable top containers are less recyclable than PET plastic water bottles. "When that container is recycled, 100 per cent of that PET material is captured. When the paperboard or the gable-top material is recycled, only the paper is recovered and the other layers of material are not recoverable, and so are lost to the recycling process. Their goal in recycling gable tops is to achieve a 75 per cent recovery of material," said Linton.

He also said Albertans recycle plastic water bottles 15 to 20 per cent more than gable top cartons. But Rotchild said Boxed Water is Better is getting people thinking about packaging. In the end though, he suspects it's just marketing. "What you're seeing in places like California and Colorado, they've made movements to ban plastic water bottles. So I wouldn't be surprised if these very gifted marketing people at Boxed Water is Better are using that as a way to say, 'This isn't a plastic water bottle — this is boxed.'"

Glorified tap water and only their word that it is actually put through the system before being boxed and shipped. Plus the not so eco friendly adds up to a marketing ploy, that may not pan out in the end if people start educating themselves. Pass for me on this one, not into glorified tap water.

The 4Rs in the title are super important at this time of year. So much goes out to the garbage can but some effort could redirect items to charity or secondhand stores, organizations that can use things in their activities or help someone else out. Or the green cart or blue bin recycling programs can take some things and do something new with them.

It does not hurt to take paper and pencil or pen and write down the things that you felt were worth the effort and which things were not worth the effort to buy/use/dispose. Then save the page for the next occasion that involves purchasing decisions that create a potential garbage increase. You won't wish to spend money doing that again.

How much trash can be deposited daily on a remote island courtesy of ocean gyres? Too much. Introducing Henderson Island and its daily receipt of plastic from elsewhere.

By clearing a part of a beach of trash and then watching new pieces accumulate, Lavers said they were able to estimate that more than 13,000 pieces of trash wash up every day on the island, which is about 10 kilometres (6 miles) long and 5 kilometres (3 miles) wide.

Henderson Island is part of the Pitcairn Islands group, a British dependency. It is so remote that Lavers said she missed her own wedding after the boat coming to collect the group was delayed.

Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday on the Gregorian calendar or Mardi Gras as it's known in New Orleans.

Recently New Orleans crews did some cleaning of the underground wastewater pipes and found a significant weight of bead necklaces blocking some infrastructure. The discovery is leading to discussion on ways to contain where the beads roll after parades to minimize future blockages. The city experienced some flooding last August and thus the cleanup ensued.

Actually, China has closed access to almost all of its market for recycled materials effective as of January 1.

Considering that the US grows a significant amount of corn and there are such things as corn-based plastic utensils that are said to be biodegradable, there is a possibility for the US to use corn for beads. But ethanol, fuel derived from corn, remains a hot commodity in alternative fuels and thus caused the spike in corn commodity prices (remember when corn cobs were seen as a wood alternative for stove/oven use not so long ago).

I sometimes pick up trash on can walks if I have an extra bag and am near a public trash can. I often find prepaid cards or loyalty cards, debit cards and other treasures (Cash) on the ground on these walks.

Volvo is owned by Zhejiang Geely Holdings (Geely for short) of China. Readers may recall that at the start of this year, China banned the import of plastics from outside of its borders so many North American cities lost an important recycling market for their post-consumer items.

I can understand contact lenses being accidently left in a body of water if a surprising wave during swimming or surfing cause someone to lose them. But deliberately flushing contact lenses down toilets or sinks? Water systems cannot deal with their weight. Contact lenses are the other problematic plastic after microplastics, microbeads and plastic beverage bottles.

In the United States approximately 45 million people wear contact lenses, and between 15 to 20 per cent of wearers dispose of their lenses by flushing them down the sink or toilet. They are made out of a plastic that is denser than water, which causes them to sink and accumulate at the bottom of wastewater treatments in giant masses that weigh between 6 and 10 metric tons.